Based on a recent three-day Roadcheck 2005 inspection of motor carriers, Hours of Service (HOS) violations by truck drivers are increasing, although only slightly. That's the bad news.
The good news is that overall out-of-service rates are down from last year.
A record 60,562 road inspections were performed over a three-day period in June at 1,348 locations throughout North America. The effort was sponsored by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) (www.cvsa.org), with participation by several government agencies, including the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators.
Though overall vehicle and driver out-of-service violations dropped, CVSA noted some troubling trends in the numbers for 2005.
In the U.S., 3.8% of the inspections conducted resulted in out-of-service conditions for HOS violations. This was up from 3.44% in 2004. Given the larger number of inspections actually conducted, the percentage increase tells only part of the story.
For Canada, HOS violations caused only 1.3% of drivers to be put out of service (down from 2.5% in 2004).
Of the total number of out-of-service violations, HOS accounted for 54.2%, down from 61.6% in 2004. False logs tracked nearly even with the prior year at 12.1% (12.2% in 2004).
The overall goal of the Roadcheck is to increase public awareness of the role of roadside inspectors.
